


It's a Brand New Year

by jumpsoap



Series: Something Wicked's Already Here (Hogwarts AU) [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Animal Friends, Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Noctis uses a wheelchair, Shopping, also known as pets, family stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-19 23:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20665553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jumpsoap/pseuds/jumpsoap
Summary: The boys each prepare for the beginning of the school year... Some have a harder time than others.(Prequel toThe Whole "Wizarding School" Thing)Prompto and Noctis are eleven-ish, Ignis and Gladio are fourteen-ish.





	1. Prompto Gets a Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> Hey.....did u know I wrote a whole novel's worth of FFXV Hogwarts AU for Nanowrimo 2017?

When the letter arrived, Prompto’s first thought was that it was some kind of practical joke. 

He’s always been fascinated by the idea of magic: wands, spells, bubbling cauldrons. He liked, in stories, when magic was something good, fun. Evil witches were fine and all, sinister old ladies with yellow teeth and long fingernails who wanted to drain the life out of little children, but he always found a part of him rooting for those characters instead of the wide-eyed kids they preyed upon. 

So what if they were ugly? He was ugly, too. He wished there were anything he wanted as much as those evil witches wanted to eat children. He wanted friends, but not enough to run around all night casting spells and cursing people, so, not enough, apparently. 

It was less confusing when the witches were good. They didn’t seem to want anything, other than to help the main character of the story, so maybe it was fine to not want anything all that much, if you were beautiful and powerful. 

The most beautiful and powerful witch Prompto knew of was The Good Witch of the North, Glinda. When he was even smaller, his parents told him, as soon as he figured out how to work the DVD player he would watch _The Wizard of Oz_ every single day. 

When they had moved to London, England months ago, he’d found himself with even less friends than he had back home. He was too shy to approach the other kids at school, and after the novelty of his arrival had worn off, they all seemed to have realized there was nothing interesting about him, after all. 

He’d even had a hard time befriending the dogs and cats around the neighborhood here, even though he’d always gotten along well with animals in the past. The closest thing he’d made to a friend was the magpie that he’d started feeding scraps from the window in his bedroom.

“Can’t be all the same bird,” his dad had said when Prompto had shown him the handfuls of coins and bits of jewelry the bird had brought to his windowsill in return. But his mom had said that magpies and ravens and crows were smart birds: they had their own personalities, they could remember human faces, and they made enemies of those who were mean to them and friends of those who were kind.

He named the bird after Glinda, because the patch of yellow feathers on her chest reminded him of Glinda’s blonde hair, and because one of the first things she’d brought him had been a cluster of red sequins, just like the ones on Dorothy’s shoes in the movie.

Sometimes he pretended she could be a good witch or a fairy godmother in disguise. If she were, though, he had no idea what he would wish for. He couldn’t just wish for people to like him—that never worked out, he knew. World peace, maybe? But even Glinda or Cinderella’s fairy godmother didn’t seem powerful enough to grant a wish like that, so it would definitely be too much to ask from his sharp little bird friend. 

Other times, he pretended he was the witch—wizard?—and Glinda was his familiar, the way Merlin had an owl or the bad witch in Sleeping Beauty had a raven. She seemed to enjoy playing along with these games, although it was hard to tell what her bird body language meant. Every sound she made sounded harsh, and her beak and claws were hard and pointy, but when he called her and she landed on his shoulder, the joy of having a living creature so close to him, trusting him, made up for the prick of her claws through his shirt or the peck of her beak as she ate out of his palm. 

So the letter had to be a prank, he figured, once he had taken it to the cramped dining room he had only just started to get used to. It had been addressed to him, with a stamp and everything, and that was weird enough: Who sent a letter to a kid?

He’d opened it up and squinted at it, pushing his glasses up to his forehead to look at it closer. It was handwritten, in green ink on yellow paper, big looping cursive. He already struggled with plain typing, so it took him some time to puzzle out what the letter was trying to tell him.

It said he had been accepted to a school, a school he’d never applied to. A school of witchcraft and wizardry.

The problem was, he couldn’t think of anyone who cared enough about him to prank him, or who knew enough about him to do it in this way. Maybe it was a joke from his parents, but they’d never done something like this before. And he’d seen their handwriting. There was no way either of them had produced the graceful, purposeful loops and points set down here.

There was a second page of the letter, which contained a list of supplies he would need to obtain before the start of term at this magical school, a long list of silly books and bizarre tools. He laughed. It sounded fun. 

Prompto folded up the letter and trudged up to his room, sliding it into his desk drawer. The letter had said that a representative of the school would be coming to his house to confirm his intention to attend and to assist obtaining his supplies.

He flopped down onto his bed and closed his eyes, although it was a bright, sunny day outside. A magic school, for witches and wizards. Yeah, right. Even if there were something like that out there, there was no way he would qualify to attend.

He quickly forgot about the letter over the next week or so, out of sight and out of mind. It was just a brief distraction from his dull life, a funny little story he could tell someone if he ever remembered it. Until it became much more than just a funny little story. 

“Honey?” There was a knock at Prompto’s door. He hadn’t gotten up yet, although it must have been past ten. Since summer had started, the days had been even longer and duller than before. He’d been lying in his bed, looking through the photographs he had taken yesterday.

He hadn’t even known his dad was back home; he must have gotten back from his latest route late last night. 

He climbed out of bed, the unexpected summons and the anxiety in his father’s voice making his stomach tighten with dread.

“There’s someone who wants to talk to you,” his dad told him when he opened the door.

“Me?” Prompto blinked up at the man.

“She says it’s about some school,” his dad said, frowning slightly. “Says you got a letter. You been sending off college applications already, buddy?”

Prompto shook his head quickly, and his dad ruffled his hair. 

“Alright, let’s go see what this is all about.”

They went down to the kitchen, where Prompto’s mom was sitting at the dining table with a young woman in a white dress. She had her ankles crossed, hands in her lap, a cup of tea untouched in front of her on the table. She smiled at them. 

“Hello, Prompto,” she said. 

His mother looked frazzled, the way she did when she came home late from a day at the museum with a stack of documents and closed herself in her office for hours, but she didn’t seem angry. “Prompto, do you know this young lady?” she asked patiently.

Prompto shook his head, drawing closer to his father.

“No, we have not met,” the woman said, voice soft but clear. “Prompto, my name is Lunafreya Nox Flueret. I’m here representing Hogwarts, school of Witchcraft and Wizardry.”

Prompto tried not to let his mouth fall open.

“She says they sent you a letter some time ago,” his mother said.

“Oh. Yeah, that’s right.”

Both his parents looked at him, startled.

“I’ll, um, I’ll go get it.” He ducked out of the room and tromped up the stairs, digging into his desk drawer and pulling out the heavy envelope. He looked at the address on it for a moment, running a finger over the cursive of his own name, before rushing back downstairs.

No one had moved in the kitchen. His dad took the envelope, pulled the enclosed letter out, eyebrows climbing up his forehead as he read it, rubbing at his mouth as he finished and moved to stand beside his wife, handing it over for her to examine.

“Prompto, when did you receive this?” she asked.

He tried to remember. “Couple weeks ago?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” 

He shrugged helplessly. “I thought it was a joke!” 

“It’s no joke,” Lunafreya informed them, looking at each of the three of them in turn. “Prompto is a wizard. He’ll need to train to control and understand his potential, even if he decides to stay a part of the non-magical world.”

His mother folded her hands on the table. “Prompto, honey, go to your room, please,” she said, eyes on Lunafreya.

He backed out of the room and fled up the stairs, heart pounding. No. No way. He wasn’t a witch, or a wizard. That was the kind of thing crazy people thought.

Whenever he daydreamed about something magical happening—_his potential_, the woman had said—he imagined being excited. Ecstatic. But now a stranger had come into his home and tried to tell his parents that magic existed and he needed to attend some school no one had ever heard. He was scared.

He opened his bedroom window and leaned out. “Glinda?” he whispered into the open air. 

And there she was, fluttering up from the yard to perch on the windowsill, turning her head to look at him with either eye.

“I’m just a normal kid, right?” he asked her.

She squawked and flapped her wings, pushing past him to fly into his room, onto his bed. He followed her, sinking down onto the mattress. Glinda had one foot on his forgotten camera, and he extracted it from underneath her, careful of her claws on its digital display.

Stuck in limbo, waiting for his parents to send Lunafreya away, he went back to looking through his photographs—a garden wall, a street lamp, a fleeing cat. The view from a sad and lonely kid’s eyes. Was that what being normal meant?

Sooner than he expected, he was called down again by his parents. To his surprise, when he returned to the kitchen, Lunafreya was still seated at the table, just as serene as she had been before. To his even greater confusion, the table was now spread with a full spread of cakes and other confections, an ornate pot of tea at its center, steam curling up from the spout.

His parents looked shaken, but his mother smiled at him. “It’s alright, honey. Come sit down.”

“I’m going to tell you some things that may surprise you, Prompto,” Lunafreya said to him. “But according to your parents, you ought to like this news.”


	2. Gladio Gets a Pep Talk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Ableism
> 
> DETAILED CONTENT WARNING: Gladio discusses Noctis's injuries with his family, who have until recently been caring for Noctis in the wake of his injury (which was the result of a similar attack to the one he suffered in Brotherhood). Gladio is angry with Noctis and expresses doubt as to the legitimacy of his disability, suggesting that he is "faking" and that he is abusing his sick role to mistreat others. ///END DETAILED CONTENT WARNING

“You gotta send me letters every week,” Iris insisted, even as Gladio picked her up from where she was sitting on a stack of books and dropped her by his door.

“You want me to send you letters, then you better let me take Moogle with me.” 

“No!” she whined. “Moogle is mine, Dad said!” 

Gladio dropped a heavy textbook into his trunk. “How am I supposed to send you letters, then?” he asked absently as he paged through another book, debating whether to bring it.

She made a show of thinking, chin in her hand. “Oh! I know, I’ll send you a letter with Moogle, then he can bring back your letter when he comes home!”

“How about I just save up my letters and give ‘em to you when I come visit?” 

She stomped her foot. “Gladdy! That isn’t how penpals work!” 

He turned away so she wouldn’t see his smirk. “That so?” 

“I wanna get letters at breakfast just like at Hogwarts,” she said. “So you have to send it by owl.” 

“If all you want is owls stepping all over your oatmeal, you don’t need me to send you letters,” Gladio pointed out. “I’ll get you a subscription to the paper.” 

“But Mum said no owls in the dining room, but I said if it was a letter from you she’d let it in, and she didn’t say she wouldn’t, so it’s gotta be from you!” 

Well, she had it all thought out, apparently. He double-checked that he had enough blank parchment to appease her, although probably just one letter would be enough for the novelty. 

She seemed to take his silence for disagreement, however. “Maybe Noctis will send me letters,” she said, crossing her arms. 

Gladio knew when he was being baited. Nonetheless, he couldn’t stop himself from snorting derisively and slamming his trunk closed with a little more force than was necessary.

“Well?” Iris asked. “Maybe he will if I ask him!” 

“Fat chance,” Gladio said. “Kid hasn’t said a word to any of us in a week.” 

“Maybe he’s sorry,” Iris said. 

“If he’s sorry, he should apologize,” Gladio said shortly.

“But I’m not mad at him,” Iris insisted. “And neither is Mum.” 

“You should be,” Gladio retorted. “He’s sick, or hurt, or whatever the hell he’s saying is wrong with him now, fine, whatever. He doesn’t just get to whine and cry and act like a little brat just because his daddy’s important and he doesn’t feel like getting better. He doesn’t get to yell at her and push you around.” 

“Gladdy,” Iris said, “You can’t be mean to Noctis, Mum said. You have to be nice.” 

“Fine. But I don’t have to talk to him. And if he still can’t get over himself, don’t come crying to me.” He backed her out of his room and shut the door in her face, then slumped against the door, pulling at his own short hair. 

He’d been nice to Noctis all summer, he’d been trying so hard, and where had it gotten them? Noctis had gotten pissier than ever as the start of school approached: his recovery had ground to a halt, he’d withdrawn back into himself.

The Amicitias had offered their help and their home to Noctis after he was injured—however _that_ happened—and he repaid them for an entire summer of kindness by blaming Gladio’s mother for not making him better and shoving Iris to the ground when she tried to help him. 

Now Noctis was going off to stay with a relative for the remaining days before term started, and Gladio couldn’t wait to be rid of him. 

Iris had been trying to play peacemaker between them, and that just made it worse. Gladio could hardly bear to see her blaming herself for the rift, but he wasn’t about to go grovel to Noctis about it. The kid had already proven he didn’t care one bit about Iris’s feelings, by making her cry and not even trying to make it up to her.

Gladio stayed in his room the rest of the day, packing for school half-heartedly. He’d already finished all his summer homework, way back when Noctis was still acting like they could be friends, even if he didn’t talk much back then, either. 

They would sit in the courtyard or, on gloomy days, in Gladio’s father’s study, and Noctis would read or draw while Gladio scratched away at his summer work. Sometimes Noctis’s friend from a few towns over would join them. It was nice. 

He didn’t intend to spend all day brooding, so he returned to packing. It was too early to need to be packing, really, but he needed something to do to work off his nervous energy. It was pouring rain outside, so running was out, and besides, he didn’t want to risk another encounter with Iris or Noctis.

He must have spent several hours at that, even if many of them were wasted with distracted reading from books he uncovered in his task. When a knock came at his door, he was trying to sort out a tangled mass that he knew had once been his school robes. He must have just wadded them up and stuffed them under his bed at the end of last term.

“Gladiolus, may I come in?” His mother was rapping at the door, and he tossed the tangled fabric back on top of his trunk, giving up.

“Yeah, come in,” he called, and she opened the door and entered, sitting down on his bed and stretching her legs with an audible _pop_. 

“Noctis just left with his grandfather,” she informed him. 

Faced with her kind, dark eyes, Gladio couldn’t bring himself to say the ‘_Good riddance_’ that was on the tip of his tongue. “Okay,” he said instead.

She watched him for a moment, but he continued to hold his tongue. “What do you think of Noctis?” she asked eventually.

Now he was at a loss. She knew what he thought of Noctis. The whole family knew, after Gladio had lost his temper and shouted at him in the courtyard where everyone could hear. It was a week ago, now, but it still made his heart race and stomach lurch with anger and frustration to remember shouting down at Noctis’s bowed head. When Noctis had finally looked up, the look on his face was one of stony indifference. 

“He’s a spoiled brat,” Gladio settled on.

She smiled, slightly, at that, and Gladio scowled. He wasn’t trying to tell a joke.

She said, “Your father and Regis Caelum had their share of fights when they were in school together. Of course, that was back when the rivalry between their school houses was running hot.”

“Well, he ain’t his dad,” Gladio said, crossing his arms and looking away. He wasn’t his father, either. He was reminded of that often enough.

“He’s a child, Gladio,” his mother said, waving him closer so that he sighed and sat down next to her. “He’s scared and in pain.”

“Doesn’t mean he can’t show a little gratitude,” Gladio huffed. 

She put a hand on his shoulder, and he looked at her. “Gladio, if you want to be a healer, you can’t do it for gratitude alone. People’s lives and health are their own, at the end of the day. We don’t give anything to them.”

Gladio rubbed at his temple. That didn’t make any sense.

She continued, “And sometimes the healing is difficult, or impossible, and part of my job is to empathise. When it doesn’t work, that’s all I can offer.” 

“But why didn’t it work?” Gladio let his hand drop finally asked what he had been wondering for a month now. “I’ve seen you heal way worse stuff than this.”

“I don’t know,” his mother said, frowning and looking over the mess Gladio had made of his room while packing. “There’s something about his condition I can’t figure out. It could be something that healing magic and exercises alone can’t solve.”

_Or he’s just faking_, Gladio thought.

His mother must have read that on his face, because she tapped his cheek and said, “And if he’s malingering, that’s its own kind of disease. Empathy, Pumpkin.” 

He batted her hand away, scowling at the nickname, and she laughed, standing up. 

“Clean up this mess, and join us for dinner,” she said. “You can’t sulk in your room until school starts. We’ll miss you too much.” 


	3. Ignis Gets a Pet

Ignis had known for a long time that he was the only normal person in his family.

Normal, for a wizard, was of course a relative term. Normal was something as simple as having a regular sleep schedule, changing one’s clothes every day, and eating a balanced meal regularly. 

It was a low bar, in the scheme of things; nonetheless, his uncle managed to easily pass under it. He was a gaunt and unkempt man, talking loudly and excitedly to Ignis over the noise of the crowd.

“Please, Uncle Aes, I am perfectly capable of completing my own shopping,” Ignis informed him, pulling his arm out of his uncle’s grasp as he attempted to drag him over to a crowded display in front of a pet shop. 

“But look! They’ve got all kinds of critters. Don’t you need an owl? You could write to your parents sometimes, you know.”

“The school provides owls for students to use for such things,” Ignis responded. “And I write to my parents the appropriate amount, at Christmas and their birthdays.” 

Normal also meant not travelling the world on a quest to create a New Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Dragons and Wyrms, but Ignis couldn’t begrudge his parents their dream. They had spent his infant years in one place, against their natures, raising him. After a few years of that, they had decided that he was old enough to dodge a stray dragon tail or burst of fire here or there, and had resumed their travels with him in tow. While other young witches and wizards learned from a curriculum and qualified professors, Ignis had learned from the school of life at a haphazard and breakneck pace.

He had finally put his foot down and politely requested that he be allowed to attend school and live with his uncle, who at the very least had settled down in one place.

He had started attending Hogwarts the year before, transferring in as a third-year student, and enjoyed it quite a bit. For one thing, there was the normalcy. 

As it turned out, most people were normal. His parents had made sure to inform him that traditional schooling was not necessary—his mother had only completed five years of tuition before dropping out in favor of her artwork—but there was a certain value, he found, to doing things the proper way, the way it was expected.

Especially when other people were around to witness and judge the deviations. While his parents’ claim that he was learning more in the field than his peers were in their introductory classes had some credit to it, there were other things to learn, important lessons if he was to achieve his ambitions of entering politics: the trends, the way people behaved in groups, the way to gain new alliances without betraying others. 

How to brush one’s teeth, Ignis thought, holding his breath when his uncle leaned in to point out a ‘real character of a bird, there,’ inside the window.

A cage in one of the outdoor displays caught Ignis’s eye: a wire box where a small yellow snake was squeezed into a corner, head raised against a silver mouse that was in the cage with it. The mouse had its teeth bared in response, both of the animals tense and trembling, on the verge of making a move. If the mouse was there as food for the snake, it was much too large. It was only a matter of time before one or both of the creatures would be badly injured.

Now that Ignis was looking for it, he saw signs among the other animals that they were not being properly cared for: birds in much too small of cages, unclean food and water containers, other animals housed together in hazardous arrangements. 

“Poor little guys,” Aes said, following his gaze to the cage with the snake and mouse. “Let’s get ‘em, eh?” 

Ignis made himself turn away. “No. Giving money to such vendors only rewards their deplorable behavior,” Ignis replied, making a mental note that increasing enforcement of laws against animal cruelty would be a top priority once he held political office. He would send a complaint to the ministry against this particular shop once they were back home. “Now please, I need to go buy potions supplies before everything’s been completely picked over.”

His uncle sighed and pushed him along. “You spend all summer with your friends in Hogsmeade and now you won’t even be seen in public with your poor uncle, I see how it is. Go do your shopping, then, Mister Scientia, and pretend you don’t know this crazy old man.” 

Ignis straightened his glasses, suppressing an urge to roll his eyes. At one point in his life, he might have been affected by these histrionics, but he was immune at this point. He set off into Diagon Alley proper, noticing the number of other Hogwarts students increasing as he got near the shops that were selling common supplies. 

There were other apothecaries than the first one that could be seen on the street, however. Ignis strode past the line of students and parents at Slug and Jiggers, reaching a quieter section of the street.

A staircase through an unmarked door led him up to a dark, smoke-filled room crammed with shelves and jars. An old woman smoked a pipe next to the only window, a small, square opening that let in barely any light.

He’d found this place with his childhood friend, approximately a year ago. Noctis had been a bright and curious boy back then. He had also been terribly jealous that Ignis would be going away to school without him, and he’d insisted on accompanying and ‘assisting’ Ignis through every step of his preparations.

They’d been set loose in Diagon Alley for an entire day, Ignis in sole charge of making sure Noctis didn’t get into too much trouble, to both his great stress and joy. 

It was only a year ago, but Noctis had changed a great deal since then, from what Ignis had seen when he’d gone to visit him at the Amicitia residence. The physical injuries he suffered seemed to have left a similarly persistent scar on his soul. Ignis still didn’t know the circumstances of his accident, and although he’d been assured that there was nothing he could have done, he still laid awake at night imagining his best friend in peril. 

“You buying anything?” The woman rasped at him.

Ignis cleared his throat and set about collecting the ingredients he needed, as well as several more exotic ingredients that he’d made personal notes to pick up.

He was able to complete his other shopping fairly quickly: books, parchment, ink, hygiene products he couldn’t easily get at school. His robes would need to be lengthened sooner or later, but he could do that on his own, with or without magic. 

His uncle found him again at the Leaky Cauldron, where he was sitting with a cup of tea and his shopping list, double-checking the things he had bought against the requirements. Aes dropped onto the bench across from him and leaned across the table, laying his closed fists on the mottled wood.

“Pick a hand, son.”

“Left,” Ignis responded immediately, not looking up from his list until he had crossed off the last item. 

Aes made a show of pocketing whatever he was holding in his other hand before saying, “Hold out your hands.” 

“What is it?” Ignis asked, eyeing the remaining closed fist warily even as he put away his letter and did as he was told.

“Present for you,” Aes said, and deposited something cool and smooth into Ignis’s hand. 

Ignis blinked down at the little yellow snake he was now holding, the one he had seen before. There was no way Aes had been hiding it in his palm, but in addition to real magic, of course, he was adept at the sleight of hand tricks that Muggles liked to entertain themselves with, so Ignis wasn’t too perplexed.

He lifted the snake up to eye level, and it curled around in his cupped hands to look back at him. It had a wedge-shaped head, with small ridges above its eyes, reminiscent of long, fluttering eyelashes. 

“It looks like you get to stay with me, then, lucky guy,” his uncle was saying. Ignis looked up to see that he had taken out of his pocket the silver mouse that had been caged with the snake. Aes set the mouse to perch on his own shoulder, where it snapped its teeth at Ignis’s snake. “Better keep these two far away from each other. And don’t worry, I didn’t pay for them.” 

*****

Later, Orichalcum was set up in a terrarium Ignis had found among the miscellaneous items hoarded in one of the many otherwise unoccupied rooms of his uncle’s house. The mouse, Avenger, was safely housed in his own cage on the other side of the house.

Ignis was just finishing up an adjustment to his robes, and the snake was watching him. It had been curled atop a rock that Aes had enchanted to radiate heat; now, apparently warmed up enough, it slithered to the glass edge, lifting its head up toward the open top, although it was too small to get out.

Ignis set down his sewing to watch it. It was a pretty little thing, honey-colored eyes wide and sharp, ridges along its back. He got up and reached a hand into the tank. The snake wrapped itself around its bare wrist, climbing up the inside of his shirt. He tried not to flinch at its movements: it seemed intelligent, but there was no need to antagonize a venomous animal. 

It tickled his throat when it emerged from within the collar of his shirt to drape around his neck.

“Going to strangle me, are you?” he asked it, but it simply settled in against his skin. 

He sat down at his desk; it was mostly clear, now. He’d packed the books and notes and supplies he would need for the year ahead into his trunk already, along with his personal items and the setup and tools he would need to care for his new pet. 

It was nice to have a pet, he thought. It would be nice. He’d always been travelling when he was a child, and although he had interacted with plenty of animals and magical creatures while travelling with his parents, he’d never been able to keep a pet. 

His parents had never told him outright, but he had the impression that they didn’t quite approve of the idea of keeping magical creatures as pets. Orichalcum, however, was a domesticated animal. That was different. These animals needed humans to take care of them. It would be a mutually beneficial relationship. 

Ignis opened the center drawer of his desk and took out the stack of letters he’d been collecting from Noctis over the summer. There were only a few. After all, he’d spent much of the summer in Noctis’s company.

He hoped that the coming year would see some improvement in Noctis’s condition, or at least in his disposition. He was a bright and energetic child before his injury; Ignis had seen glimpses of that happy boy in some of their interactions over the summer. But he’d also seen him be unusually surly, lashing out at the Amicitias and even at Ignis. Perhaps it was partly just a part of growing up.

There were many things he wanted to do with Noctis once they got to Hogwarts, though. He knew Noctis would enjoy exploring the castle, learning about its history. He’d always been intelligent and curious, even though most of the adults around them had presumed that Ignis was the smarter of the two of them. 

He tucked the letters in with the stationary in his trunk and closed it with a click, then lifted Orichalcum from around his neck and set the snake back down into its terrarium. He didn’t know what the year ahead would bring, but he was ready for it.


	4. Noctis Gets a Doll (or Two)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warning: Strained family relationships, internalized ableism, disability-related suffering, and depression
> 
> DETAILED CONTENT WARNING: Noctis is in pain and dealing with guilt, shame and anger regarding his injury and difficult, incomplete recovery. His grandfather has not been attentive to Noctis during his childhood and Noctis resents him. ///END DETAILED CONTENT WARNING

Noctis shifted in his wheelchair, adults towering over him in every direction as he and his grandfather said their goodbyes at the front step of the Amicitia estate.

His back and legs ached; Dalia Amicitia may have been the best healer in Britain, according to his father, but she couldn’t make the pain go away. The exercises she put him through felt more like torture than healing. When he’d finally told her that, after a long month of staggering around with crutches or bars or someone’s arm to hold him up, she’d just smiled at him and shook her head. Even when he had shoved Iris off of him and she’d burst into tears on the ground, Mrs. Amicitia had simply gathered her daughter into her arms and smiled gently at Noctis.

Somehow, that had hurt more. He felt as though he was the one disappointing her, even though he was only here for her to help him, and his father had told him that he would be better by the start of the school year, under her care. 

It hadn’t worked. 

It hadn’t worked because of him. He wanted to get better, he wanted it so badly that it kept him up at night. More than the pain, more than the nightmares, what kept him up was wishing that he could just be normal again, that he could walk into Hogwarts like he’d imagined so many times.

He didn’t want it enough, though. That was the only explanation. There must have been some part of him that didn’t want to get better. Did he want attention? Special treatment? 

He didn’t think he wanted attention. He didn’t much like attention: people looking at him, expecting something of him, watching him to see signs that he could turn out to be a great wizard like his father. 

“Write to me if you notice anything changing about your injuries,” Mrs. Amicita told Noctis, handing him a wrapped packet that smelled of herbs and sickness. 

He nodded, looking down at the neatly written instructions attached to the packet so that he wouldn’t have to look up at her face. He couldn’t look at her without seeing disappointment in her eyes or hearing the things her son had said to him: _lazy, faker, brat_.

His grandfather was standing beside his chair, one hand resting on a handle. He reached over Noctis and took the packet out of his hands, tucking it into his own pocket. “We’re deeply indebted to you, my dear.”

“Noctis is welcome any time,” Mrs. Amicitia said. Her husband, a muscular and quiet man, nodded next to her. He even smiled at Noctis when he noticed him staring. His stomach lurched. He didn’t know why they were covering for him. He wanted to sink into the floor and never see anyone ever again, so that he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

Iris came into the room, looking a little out of breath.

“I thought you might have already left!” she exclaimed, running up to Noctis.

“N-no,” Noctis stammered. “I’m… still here.” He bit his tongue before he could apologize. He didn’t need to beat a dead horse.

“For you,” Iris said, pressing something soft into Noctis’s hand. “To remember me!”

Behind him, Noctis heard his grandfather chuckle, then cough. “You didn’t say you had a girlfriend,” he said, squeezing Noctis’s shoulder. 

Noctis looked at the thing in his hand—a litte white and red doll of a creature from one of the storybooks Iris liked, one that he had read to her several times over the course of his stay here.

“Gladio’s still mad,” Iris whispered. She was so little. Noctis felt another stab of guilt for pushing her. “But he’ll be okay. I’m gonna tell him to protect you from the bullies at Hogwarts.” 

The idea of ‘_bullies_’ and ‘_Gladio_’ in a single thought didn’t make Noctis feel any safer, but he wasn’t going to insult Iris’s big brother in addition to all the other transgressions he had committed in this house.

To his astonishment, she threw her arms around his neck and hugged him, half in his lap. “I’m gonna miss you.” 

He hugged her back, surprised at himself. At how his heart warmed at the gesture. How long had it been since someone had hugged him? Let alone someone who had every reason to hate him. 

“I’ll see you around, Iris,” he mumbled. She pulled away and smiled at him, bright as anything.

They said their final farewells—Gladio still never showed—and then Noctis’s grandfather took his hand and held onto his chair and apparated them away. Noctis didn’t much like travelling by apparating—the darkness, the crushing, breathless feeling, the disorientation upon arriving. 

Still, it was undeniably the fastest way to travel. They were spat out of the void at the front step of Mors Lucis Caelum’s estate. A long drive—rarely used, from what Noctis had seen while growing up—stretched out through a field of hedges and topiaries. 

Mors coughed again now that they were home. The old man seemed in fairly robust health, but Noctis was sure the apparating could take a lot out of even the healthiest individual.

“Well, my boy,” Mors said once he had recovered. “Shall we go up?” 

“I can go myself,” Noctis said, already moving toward the door.

“Of course you can,” his grandfather said, somewhat patronizingly. “Did you want to see your friend? Aes’s boy?”

Noctis stopped, and shook his head. “No. I don’t want to see him. I just want to rest before term starts. I don’t want to see anyone.”

Mors chuckled. “Got ourselves another misanthrope, I see,” he said. “Regis wasn’t too happy about seeing other people when he was a boy, either.”

That hurt. Noctis did know what a misanthrope was—was that what he was? A people-hater? He didn’t mean to come off as that type of person. People just tired him so much. He was already tired from the pain in his back, and from his difficulty sleeping, and all other people wanted to do was ask him questions or make him do exercises or read books.

At least Gladiolus had seemed happy enough sitting with him quietly in the library. He’d been so patient with him over the summer, sitting with him while they both read, or Noctis drew and Gladio studied. He had never roused him when he dozed off. He’d even let him lean against his arm sometimes on cold days, which, in retrospect, was a little embarrassing. An older boy like Gladio, practically an adult, didn’t want to be cuddling a kid like Noctis, he was sure. But Gladio had never complained.

Gladio had been so good helping him through his rehabilitation sessions, too. He was so strong, much stronger than most wizards had any interest in becoming, and he was only thirteen or fourteen. His interest in growing stronger and larger didn’t seem to be waning, either. He could support Noctis’s entire weight with one arm. 

Whenever Noctis would fall or pull away, Gladio wasn’t exactly kind and patient; he certainly never acted as though it was his fault that Noctis had fallen, even when Noctis was pretty sure he could have done more to stop it. He’d just told Noctis that he needed to work harder, pay more attention. It was hard, and embarrassing, but it was also… kind of comforting. Noctis didn’t feel like a burden when Gladio was around. He didn’t feel like Gladio would take anything he did personally.

Until he’d gone off on Iris and Dahlia, Noctis remembered. God, he shouldn’t have done that. He was such an asshole. Gladio had forgiven every petty and rude thing he’d done to him, but all it took was one transgression against his sister and mother for Gladio to decide he wasn’t worth it anymore. Noctis couldn’t blame him. He couldn’t imagine himself standing up for someone else that way, but it was obvious that Gladio loved his family very much. It was an admirable trait.

“So you don’t want to see your friends anymore, do you? What, are they mad about your little girlfriend?” His grandfather teased him.

Noctis didn’t want to rise to his bait. He’d never been particularly close to his grandfather; the man had seemed to view him as nothing more than a nuisance when he was younger. Maybe he was trying to make up for that now that he was injured, or maybe he had just finally begun to see him as a person rather than an annoying child. 

They entered the main room of the large, mostly empty house. It was old, but clean and well-maintained. Cold, with large, imposing furniture and stone floors that always sucked up all the ambient warmth in every room. 

Noctis made for the corridor that would lead him to the room he always stayed in, a bedroom that was much too large and sterile for a child, but Mors called to him.

“Noctis,” he said, voice rasping, sounding more serious than he had been before. “I have something for you.”

“What is it?” Noctis asked.

Mors moved over to the fireplace at the end of the room and took a wooden box off of the mantle. Noctis didn’t recognize it, although he’d spent enough time at this house to think he would know every trinket and heirloom that decorated the elegant shelves and cabinets. 

Beckoning Noctis over, Mors sat down at an upholstered leather couch, white leather, and opened the box.

Noctis leaned in to look inside. There was a little jade figurine, an animal like a fox or a large-eared cat represented in silhouette. It looked familiar.

“This is something your mother left behind,” Mors told him, his weak voice quiet and hard to understand. 

Noctis reached out and took the figurine up from the cushioned inside of the box; Mors didn’t make any gesture to stop him. 

“I didn’t think it had any magical properties,” Mors admitted. “Your father says he doesn’t, either. But when you were hurt, last year, I caught Regis putting this under your pillow as you lay there, so still we thought you had already moved on. It seems he wasn’t as skeptical as he liked to pretend.”

“What is it?” Noctis asked.

“It’s something that’s supposed to protect you,” Mors said. “A friend. When you woke up, Regis put it away again. I think he didn’t want to explain to you that it was Aulea’s.”

Noctis frowned, and Mors smiled at him.

“Don’t be too hard on my boy, Noctis. He only wants what’s best for you. He doesn’t think dwelling on a person who’s not around should be part of a little boy’s life. But life isn’t always what it should be.” Gently, Mors extracted the figurine from Noctis’s hand and returned it to the padded box. Then, to Noctis’s surprise, he gave the whole thing to him, laying it upon his lap.

“Take it with you to school,” Mors said. “Regis doesn’t have to know.” 

Noctis held the box in his lap, looking down at the smooth, black wood. “Okay,” he said.

“It can be friends with your little keepsake there,” Mors said, pointing to the white and red doll Iris had given him, peeking out of his pocket.

Noctis mustered a smile for his grandfather. Something about the little green figurine did make him feel better.

Mors stood up. “Well, you’ll want to go to your room, I suppose. It’s all just as it was. Call if you need anything.”

Noctis went to his bedroom. All of his personal items, his things, had been brought over from the Amicitia residence already, but he didn’t unpack anything. He set the little doll from Iris—a moogle, he remembered—on his bedside table, and set the black box with the fox inside next to it. After a moment of looking at it, he opened up the box and took out the figurine.

It didn’t feel like anything special or magical in his hand. But sometimes things like that just felt like normal object, he had learned even in his short twelve years of life. 

He climbed into bed and pushed the figurine under his pillow. Maybe it would help him sleep. And maybe it was the figurine’s presence, or the relief of being away from the Amicitia’s, or the comfort of being in a bed he’d slept on many years ago, but he drifted off more easily than he had in weeks.

He had a strange dream. He was at Hogwarts; he’d never been to Hogwarts before, even though his father had been the headmaster since before he could walk. But he was there, on the green lawn, looking up at the castle. It was completely empty. The doors stood open, silent and unmoving, no wind to make them creak. 

To his left, down a gentle slope, was a lake. It, too, was silent and still. There were clouds in the sky, fluffy and white, big expanses of blue in between, but they hung without moving in the blue sky. It was like standing inside a painting, a muggle painting like he had seen in a book Ignis had given to him. 

He knew he was dreaming. He took a breath, and felt it expand his chest. He blew it out, and a few strands of hair across his face fluttered. He lifted his hands up to his face and looked at them. So he could move, here.

He heard a chirping sound behind him, and spun around.

There on the ground was a familiar figure. The little fox figure, come to life. It was a sleek bundle of silver fur, comically big ears on its head above intelligent eyes and a little ruby horn. 

Noctis opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out. 

The creature walked up to him, its small paws stepping daintily on the stiff blades of grass below. It looked up at him as it reached his feet, and lifted itself up onto its hind legs to paw at his knee.

He picked it up the way he had seen some cats being held, holding it behind its front legs so that its back end dangled below. It was eerily light, like picking up a stuffed animal, but it was warm beneath his hands. He could feel its chest moving as it breathed, just like his own.

Its big dark eyes looked into his own, and he could see… there, inside the creature’s eyes… he could see something there. He held it more closely to his face, squinting into its eyes. 

It reached out a paw and touched his nose.

He startled awake. He was in his bed at his grandfather’s house, asleep on top of the covers. He lifted up a hand and touched his own nose. His nose, often cold and runny, felt warm. Outside, the sky was darker than before, not just dark with the storm but with night, now.

Noctis turned over in the bed and dug the figurine out from underneath his pillow. He looked at it for a moment, smoothing his finger over its cool surface. He thought he could feel some warmth, there, beneath the hard surface.

“Carbuncle,” he whispered, remembering the creature’s name from some night months ago, when it had come to him when he was asleep much more deeply, so deeply asleep he might have never woken up if the little fox had not sought him out and led him back.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I wrote this (and a lot more) a couple years ago, and I decided it was kind of silly to let it all sit getting dusty forever.
> 
> Contact/follow me!  
[Twitter](https://twitter.com/jump_soap)  
jumpsoap @gmail


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